Gary Andrews

Funny, really, how many individuals’ blogs in my RSS reader are having more posts saying: “Sorry, been a bit busy, here’s what I’ve been up to.”

Funnily enough I was thinking of posting something similar myself. But it also got me thinking.

Part of this also stemmed from a colleague asking for a list of bloggers for area x earlier today. My list was a bit small. “That’s great,” came the response, “but, er, is that it.”

I checked. Yes, that was indeed it. And, what’s more, it was probably a bit smaller than the last area x blogger list I sent over.

Which neatly melds these two lines of thought together. This isn’t a sign that the blogosphere (sorry) is getting smaller, nor are people stopping blogging. But they are consolidating.

Plenty of people still have personal blogs, but it’s kind of inevitable that blog activity tails off at some point. It takes a lot of time to run and maintain a blog, especially if it’s just you running it.

You know those blogging advice guides that tell you to blog every day. Great, but you try blogging every day on your own blog, plus having a job, plus having a social life, plus having a relationship, plus writing for all those other blogs you promised people to. Why, you’d almost think blogging was a full-time job.

It’s one of the reasons I’m quite a fan of Posterous.

It’s somewhat inevitable that, if you’re any good, you’ll either try and flex your muscles and write for blogs for bigger audiences, or group blogs that carry more prestige. After all, it helps you get more writing and blogging work, and so on.

So, I can either say: “Oh yes, I blog at Gary Andrews.net,” and people may expect a wonderfully daily updated site. Or I can say: “I write for Soccerlens, twofootedtackle.com, and Pitch Invasion. And I have my own blog.” Kind of sounds more impressive really.

If you’re really good, others will pick up on your work and you might even get a mainstream publication or two pick you up for occasional pieces. Plus you flit between half a dozen different blogs. Before you know it your personal blog is looking a little forlorn or serves merely as a place to dump everything you’re working on.

It’s not like it’s a surprise that blogging, and websites, and group blogs ape more traditional publications really. There’s only a small percentage of bloggers who have the time to consistently post, and these tend to be the ones who set up blog networks.

But this brings us to another point to briefly touch on – online PR. If blogs are consolidating, and bloggers are moving between online and offline publications, where does this leave your online PR specialist?

In times past, your non-online PR (no, I have no idea what the best name to label these as is) would take care of the press, the magazines, the TV, the radio and your online PR would beaver away looking for bloggers or cool websites.

But now your blogger is writing for the newspaper, and blogging as well, and that reporter you’ve got labelled as a star contact is spending more time updating his blog for the newspaper, while another journalist has set up an online magazine, yet the hot young blogger has launched his new news and opinion site for the same topic and, now you come to look at them, they look remarkably similar in terms of content. And they’re all on Twitter.

I’ll be shocked if online PR is still considered a separate discipline in five years. And I think I’m being generous in timescale here.

Yet you’ll still find people who insist online PR is a separate discipline; an area that only online specialists can deliver results. Yet, increasingly, your online and not-online PRs are pitching the same spaces and, if they’re doing it well, it’ll be in exactly the same way.

I’ve said many a time before, it’s not a mystery on how to pitch blogs. To that, you can add, there’s no point drawing up a long list of blogs and websites to get coverage on if you’re not going to see the benefits or the ROI.

You wouldn’t invite the Glossop Advertiser to a national policy briefing that has little relevance to Glossop, solely on the basis that it’s the same medium as the Guardian. Similarly, why would you want to pitch a blogger on a topic that has little relevance to them, other than the fact that, like Blog Y, they’re also based on the internet. Great, it’s been covered by 20 bloggers. But that’s not much use if it’s only relevant to the audience of 2 out of the 20.

There’s nothing mysterious about contacting bloggers, and there’s no shame in going for the biggest blogs in that area if they’re the most relevant. But it’s also worth remembering not to forget the smaller individual bloggers writing in the same area. After all, they’ll probably be editing the bigger blogs in a year’s time.

written by Gary \\ tags: blogging, consolidation, online PR

Twitter has been featuring prominently in my life in the past few weeks, moreso than usual. I’ve been doing a series of presentations and training in the last month on social media and, unsurprisingly, the microblogging site has been a large part of that.

But one common theme that’s emerged as the assorted presentations have been put together is the danger of viewing Twitter as the be-all-end-all-complete-future-of-journalism-and-media.

Twitter is a great communication tool. There are some very cool tools being developed outside of the site, especially Twitterfall. And, because it’s the flavour of the month, absolutely everything appears to be revolving around it at the moment.

On one hand, it’s fantastic journalists and PRs are starting to realise the value in the site IF they handle it correctly. On the other hand, because Twitter is THE internet site of the moment, there’s a danger of being caught up in the hype and using Twitter for the sole reason that you’re on Twitter.

This is the same for all things social media  – it’s not good saying that you blog or have a video on YouTube if nobody reads or watches it. The same’s true of Twitter. Having an account is useful, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve solved that campaign in one fell swoop.

One post I’ve been quoting heavily from in the presentation is Shannon Paul’s advice to stop looking for easy answers:

“Should YOUR company blog? It depends.

Should YOUR company have a Facebook page? It depends.

Should YOUR company be on Twitter? It depends.

If YOUR company IS on Twitter, should it be a person or a brand? It depends.

ANYONE who says they know the answers to these questions without taking a look at your business model, goals and objectives and listening to your customer base should be taken with a very large grain of salt.

There are no easy answers.”

Jemima Kiss and Kevin Anderson from the Guardian say pretty much the same thing. Twitter is a good tool but you’ve got to know what you’re doing with it and even WHY you’re using it:

“She’s [Jemima] spot on when it comes to Twitter. There is a tendency for organisations to rush with the herd to a new social media service or site without thinking about what, editorially, they are trying to achieve. I’ve seen the same thing happen with blogs and Facebook.”

I use Twitter for work on a daily basis. I also use other sites. Facebook, blogs, YouTube, and a host of other social media odds and sods. Often Twitter is a nice addition or afterthought rather than the primary driver.

It’s worth just taking a step back from the hype and considering exactly what it is you want from anything online. Often Twitter isn’t the right tool for it.

Similarly, there’s the danger of putting all your eggs in one basket. You don’t have to be on Twitter, it merely helps. Twitter can be useful in a PR campaign, but it might not necessarily achieve the best results.

Similarly, I genuinely believe any journalist who limits themselves to solely being contacted through Twitter risks missing out. Restricting yourself to one medium is, well, doing just that. I’d rather have my fingers in many pies than focusing on just one pie, no matter how large and tasty it looks.

Sky News have just announced a Twitter correspondent. Again, on one hand a smart move, on the other, it’s a bit of a niche role even within an industry that has plenty of niche roles. But, on the third hand (we’re talking genetic engineering here) if it gets them an exclusive or two, it’ll be worth it.

This may be a bit of a rambling post, but it’s definitely worth repating there is more to online media work than Twitter.

And with that, I’m off for a drink with a bunch of people I first met on Twitter.

[If you want to see the last presentation I did for Porter Novelli's #pntwit day, the slides are here.]

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: online journalism, online PR, pntwit, Twitter